Psychrobacter vallis sp. nov. and Psychrobacter aquaticus sp. nov., from Antarctica

• Main Authors: Shivaji, Sisinthy, Reddy, Gundlapalli S. N., Suresh, Korpole, Gupta, Pratima, Chintalapati, Suresh, Schumann, Peter, Stackebrandt, Erko, Matsumoto, Genki I.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Society for General Microbiology 2005
• Subjects: QL Zoology; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://repository.ias.ac.in/64284/; http://ijs.sgmjournals.org/content/55/2/757.abstract?sid=c0a34976-4052-4bbd-b7d2-1d872ed089cd

Twelve strains of psychrophilic bacteria were isolated from cyanobacterial mat samples collected from various water bodies in the McMurdo Dry Valley region of Antarctica. All the isolates were Gram-negative, non-motile, coccoid, psychrophilic, halotolerant bacteria and had C 16:1 ω7c, C 17:1 ω8c and C 18:1 ω9c as the major fatty acids, ubiquinone-8 as the respiratory quinone and DNA G+C content of 41-46 mol%. Based on these characteristics, the isolates were assigned to the genus Psychrobacter. Based on their SDS-PAGE profiles, the 12 isolates could be categorized into three groups. Six isolates of Group I were identified as representing strains of Psychrobacter okhotskensis. However, using detailed phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis based on their 16S rRNA gene sequences, strain CMS 39 T , the only strain from Group II, and strain CMS 56 T , a representative strain of Group III, were different from each other and from all recognized species of Psychrobacter. Therefore, it is proposed to classify CMS 39 T (=DSM 15337 T =MTCC 4208 T ) and CMS 56 T (=DSM 15339 T =MTCC 4386 T ) as representing the type strains of novel species of Psychrobacter, for which the names Psychrobacter vallis sp. nov. and Psychrobacter aquaticus sp. nov., respectively, are proposed.